Mothering without My Mother

A Psychotherapist’s Journey

Abstract

Early mother loss leaves one lacking guidance, nurture, and advice, much like a ship endlessly looking for its lighthouse. How does one process the world after they have been robbed of the experience of having a mother? The author, a perinatal psychotherapist who lost her mother in adolescence, offers an examination and reflection of the multilayered ways that the loss of her mother has affected her and shaped her choices in life. To understand mothering, she becomes a mother-focussed therapist before then becoming a mother herself. She uses her own experience to share and describe the conscious and unconscious manifestations of grief, highlighting the confusion and perpetual longing that come with loss that occurs before one’s identity has had a chance to fully develop. The author incorporates research on motherless mothers, ties concepts from mother and infant attachment to motherlessness, explores the power and subtlety of continuing bonds, and examines the impact that media parental representations can have on a person’s loss and grief, as well as bonding. The finality of loss is juxtaposed with the endlessness of the search and pining for the deceased. Through an autoethnographic recollection of memories and reembodiment of the past, this article provides a useful accompaniment to studies on bereaved adolescents and motherless daughters attempting to navigate living life without their lighthouse.